Apr 30, 2012

44 ‘prostitutes’ test positive out of 93 arrested

A report
by Hisbah officials (the Sharia police) indicating that 44 out of 93commercial
sex workers arrested last Sunday at Kwanar Gafan are infected with deadly
HIV/AIDS, is eliciting fears of massive spread of the scourge in the area –not
only among clients but among innocent housewives across Kano state.

If a single market could harbour as much as
44 HIV infected ‘prostitutes’, how many unsuspecting clients could have
contracted the virus from the victims? What factors could have been responsible
for the convergence of prostitutes at the Kwanan Gafan market? What would be
the fate of innocent housewives who might have contracted the disease through
unfaithful partners? What steps would the state government take to checkmate
further spread of the scourge to other parts of the state? These questions and
others have been befuddling the minds of residents in the wake of the Hisbah
report.

The Kwanar
Gafan market which deals mostly in tomato business is believed to be drawing
people from all parts of Nigeria and neighbouring countries like Niger,
Cameroon and Chad Republics.Investigations by Weekly Trust revealed that the
sex hawkers usually assemble at the market about two or three weeks before the
seasonal business activities commenced.“The state Ministry of Health has been actively
working with the Federal Ministry of Health and other partners to ensure that
the HIV scourge is adequately addressed and brought under control. The
HIV status in Kano during the last survey was 4.4 percent which is quite low
when compared with that of other states